Boca Undercover

by Miriam Auerbach

  More Books by

  Miriam Auerbach

  from

  Bell Bridge Books

  The Dirty Harriet Mystery Series

  Dead in Boca

  Book 3

  Dirty Harriet Rides Again

  Book 2

  Dirty Harriet

  Book 1

  Boca Undercover

  Book 4 in the Dirty Harriet Mystery Series

  by

  Miriam Auerbach

  Bell Bridge Books

  Copyright

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons (living or dead), events or locations is entirely coincidental.

  Bell Bridge Books

  PO BOX 300921

  Memphis, TN 38130

  Ebook ISBN: 978-1-61194-565-2

  Print ISBN: 978-1-61194-558-4

  Bell Bridge Books is an Imprint of BelleBooks, Inc.

  Copyright © 2014 by Miriam AuerbachPrinted and bound in the United States of America.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

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  Cover design: Debra Dixon

  Interior design: Hank Smith

  Photo/Art credits:

  Graphic background (manipulated) © Les Cunliffe | Dreamstime.com

  Woman (manipulated) © Branislav Ostojic | Dreamstime.com

  Bullet holes (manipulated) © Robert Adrian Hillman | Dreamstime.com

  Ocean view (manipulated) © 13claudio13 | Dreamstime.com

  :Eubh:01:

  Dedication

  To David Rafaidus

  Superhusband

  Chapter 1

  IT IS A TRUTH universally acknowledged that a single woman in possession of a good boob job must be on the hunt for a husband. The known universe, in this case, is brassy, ritzy Boca Raton, Florida, a place where the personal power plays make those in Jane Austen’s universe, or for that matter, the Real Housewives of New Jersey, look like amateur hour.

  Our huntress is one Brigitta “Gitta” Larsen O’Malley Castellano, a.k.a. the “Danish Dish.” She’s a twice-widowed former Miss Denmark and third-runner up for Miss Universe 1992. Our prey is one Kevin Reilly. More on him later. And your humble social chronicler of their little comedy of mismanners is I, Harriet Horowitz, formerly a member of Gitta’s tribe of Boca Babes, now a swamp-dwelling motorcycle maven.

  But this story is not all about mating maneuvers, misunderstood men, and meddling mothers. It’s about murder. Or so, at least, Gitta insisted when she called me in hysterics one fine October Sunday afternoon as I was polishing my Harley Hugger on the front porch of my log cabin in the Everglades west of Boca. I was enjoying the seventy-five degree, low-humidity air—a long-awaited respite from a languid, hot summer that had culminated in a hurricane.

  The caller ID on my cell read “The Oasis,” so I knew it had to be Gitta. She had checked herself into that resort spa/drug rehab facility for the rich and famous two weeks previously. The reason: Gitta was a cokehead . . . and Reilly was a cop. No, he hadn’t busted her; they’d met when he caught the case of the murder of her second spouse, “Junior” Castellano, who was actually her senior by a good twenty-five years. Can you say “trophy wife?” If so, you’ve already got the inside line on what makes the Boca universe spin.

  Now, however, Gitta was climbing down the marriage ladder, setting her sights on Reilly, whose salary as a Boca Raton P.D. detective was laughable by Boca Babe standards. But Gitta had decided that after decades of molding herself to the desires of wealthy, older men, she now wanted a relationship based on authenticity. And I guess you couldn’t be authentic if you were addicted.

  Hell, I should know—I too had been an addict. An addict to the Life of Luxury. Which ended when I blew away my rich but abusive husband, Bruce Barfknecht. In self-defense. Now, as far as I was concerned, you couldn’t be more authentic than when dominating a five-hundred pound machine hurtling down an open road at eighty miles an hour. It’s no coincidence that motorcycle experiences—whether riding or repair—have been compared to Zen. Both practices propel you into an alternate reality where you’re in communion with . . . well, I don’t know what, but something beyond yourself.

  Gitta’s call snatched me out of my biker bliss and back to Boca bizarreness.

  “Harriet!” she rasped. “Help me!”

  “What’s wrong, Gitta?” I asked with a good deal of wariness. Her coming to me for help couldn’t bear any positive implications. I mean, it’s not like we were BFFs or anything. Back in the day, we’d been compatriots in conspicuous consumption, spending our days in boutique shops and beauty salons. But leaving my Life of Luxury in the dust in order to recover from my addiction had meant leaving all my faux friends, like Gitta, too. For their part, they’d been all too happy to distance themselves from me—the woman who had very publicly shattered the illusion of Boca perfection that they worked so hard to maintain. It was only in the last few months that circumstances had led me and Gitta to re-establish our acquaintance.

  And those circumstances were hardly happy ones. The last time Gitta had asked for my help—in finding Junior’s killer—I’d been sucked into a moral sinkhole so deep I still struggled, at times, with the repercussions. So you can see why I was on my guard.

  Which turned to outright disgust when Gitta whispered, “They’re killing people in here.”

  I know paranoia when I hear it. Especially the cocaine-induced variety. Bruce had evidenced the same symptoms—right up until I grabbed the .44 Magnum he’d taken to carrying and shot him with it as he was about to pound me with his fists. Again.

  The coke might have left Gitta’s body since she’d been in rehab, but apparently her brain hadn’t gotten the memo. It was still operating in madness mode. Yet it had its own internal logic: if people were being killed at The Oasis, that would be a great reason for Gitta to get the hell out of there. And resume her habit. Which, honestly, I didn’t want to happen. Despite my distrust of her, I had to give her credit for wanting to change her life. And beyond that, I had discovered, over the past few years of my own recovery, that part of maintaining my own sanity meant helping others.

  “Gitta,” I said, “I’m sure you’re safe. You’re where you need to be right now.”

  “No!” she said with panicked urgency. “You have to believe me!”

  “Why don’t you take a deep breath and, uh, get a massage or something?” I figured the place operated like an all-inclusive vacation. Minus the martinis and mai-tais, of course. “I’m sure you’ll feel better after that.”

  “Nooo,” she wailed.

  I sighed. The reassurance gambit wasn’t working. Maybe if I just heard her out, she would realize how ridiculous her suspicion was. “Okay, tell me about it,” I said.

  “Not on the phone. They could be listening in. I’ve already said too much. You have to come over.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Let me get back to you shortly,” I said, and hung up.

  The devil on my left shoulder told me to blow her off; the angel on my right urged me to go. I needed a tie-breaker. I looked around the swamp for my co
mpanion, Lana. She’s six feet of muscle and mouth. Her skin is habitually cracked and mud-caked. Her eyeballs bulge, and one snaggletooth juts out over her upper lip.

  No, she’s not a butch women’s basketball coach or a Catholic school nun. She’s an American alligator.

  I spotted her ridged back emerging from the mire. I informed her of my dilemma. She rolled onto her back, exposing her ghastly white underbelly to the warmth of the sun.

  Hello? I said in my mind. Are you listening? I need input here.

  She swished her tail, maneuvering herself out of the shadow of an overhanging cypress branch into a sunnier spot.

  Bullshit, seemed to be the message. You already know the right thing to do. You always do. You just go through this charade of consulting me, hoping I’ll tell you what you want to hear and absolve you of responsibility. As a matter of fact, I’ve been meaning to discuss this with you. I’m starting to feel used.

  Look, I said, can we have this “where is this relationship going” chat later? Just tell me what it is you think I know, already. Should I stay or should I go?

  She flipped back over and went out into the vast unknown of the River of Grass. I guess that was her signal for me to go, too. Damn.

  I dialed the number Gitta had called from. She answered before the first ring was complete. “Harriet, thank God.”

  “When’s a good time for me to come by?” I asked.

  “This instant!” she hissed. That was the addictive mindset for you—the need for immediate gratification with no regard for other people.

  “I’ll be there in a couple hours,” I said. In fact, the journey wouldn’t take more than an hour, but I didn’t want her to think I was at her beck and call.

  Now, you might wonder why Gitta was seeking my help in the first place. After all, Reilly was a homicide cop—why not go to him? Well, for all I knew, she might have gone to him, too. But this was not my first ride at the murder rodeo. I’m a private investigator, although my specialty is scams, not skeletons. I run a one-woman operation, ScamBusters. The Great Recession has had no negative impact on my business; South Florida is still Scam Central USA. The nature of the crime has simply shifted from deceptive derivatives and ninja (no income, no job or assets) loans to foreclosure fraud and bogus bankruptcy bailouts.

  Despite my clear specialization, people keep coming to me with killings. I guess it’s like being a doctor. You might be a pediatric podiatrist, but that doesn’t stop people from asking your advice on their pathological prostates. They hear the “doctor” part but not the “specialist” part. So it is for the poor PI.

  But why do I take these cases, you might ask? Is it an inability to just say no? In a word, yes. You see, it’s something deep inside me—my Inner Vigilante. Whenever I get a whiff of injustice, I have to set it right. And I’ve learned that doing so often requires action beyond the law, just as Dirty Harry, that rogue cop of ’70s movie fame, knew. Hence my moniker, “Dirty Harriet,” bestowed on me by the media following that little business of my husband’s demise.

  Not that I believed the matter at hand was really murder, as I said. I’d ride out to The Oasis, placate Gitta’s paranoia, and be back home in time to enjoy the sunset over the swamp, my habitual glass of Hennessy in hand.

  I finished polishing the spokes of my Hog and maneuvered the bike onto the customized airboat moored to the hitching post at the side of my porch. The vessel is a former tourist boat originally designed to carry a dozen people, retrofitted to accommodate me and my Hog, tied down with straps (just the Hog, not me).

  I cast off the ropes, inserted plugs into my ears, topped them with noise-cancelling headphones, and turned on the engine. When it comes to motors, there’s only one sound that speaks to me—the one-of-a-kind, offbeat rhythm of the Harley Davidson V-twin. Whereas a Hog is the roar of a wild tiger, the motor that spins the five-foot fan on the back of an airboat is the screech of ten thousand housecats in heat. Hence the ear protection.

  When I engaged the gears, the boat glided away from my stilt-elevated log cabin. I looked back fondly at my home, a little . . . well, oasis in the watery wilderness. I’ve equipped the place with a generator and self-composting septic tank. Hauling in gas, water, and food once a week allows me complete self-sufficiency.

  As I skimmed over the surface of the shallow water, the sawgrass parted before me, and flocks of snowy egrets took flight. The sky was big and round out here. I’d once lived in a huge house with a small slice of sky; now I lived in a small house with a huge hunk of heaven. My freedom was inversely proportional to the size of my dwelling.

  As I breathed in the smells of nature—the lake water, the pine trees, and, okay, exhaust fumes—I felt my phone vibrate in my hip pocket. Damn, was Gitta calling again? What was it now? She couldn’t get a massage on demand? Had the manicurists gone on strike?

  I looked at the display. It wasn’t Gitta. It was Lior. My . . . Krav Maga martial arts instructor. Except he was more than that now. Something had been building between us over the past six months, and it had culminated in a near-consummation of our relationship during the height of the hurricane two months ago. However, homicidal interests had intervened.

  Immediately thereafter, Lior had flown to his native Israel for what was supposed to be a quick wrap-up of some unfinished business. However, his stay had been extended for reasons unknown to me. Reasons that would probably remain unknown, since, as Lior had disclosed to me, he wasn’t merely a personal trainer. That was just a cover for his real job—Interpol agent. Just when we had gotten closer, secrets had surfaced. Secrets that might bind us—or unravel us.

  I turned off the boat’s motor, removed my headgear, and answered the phone. “Hey.” I wasn’t the warm-and-fuzzy-greeting type.

  “Hi, baby.” His Hebrew-accented baritone sent electricity from my head to my . . . uh, toes. “Miss me?” he asked. The man had a certain arrogance. Not enough to qualify for asshole status but annoying nonetheless.

  Yeah, I missed his six-foot-four, rock-solid self. “Nope,” I said. “You know me—loner to the core. Lana’s all the company I need.”

  “That’s too bad, seeing as I’ll be home tomorrow evening. I guess you won’t be glad to see me.” I could just feel him smirk from across the Atlantic.

  I froze. Tomorrow? Well, it wasn’t like I had to rush to get my hair done, my legs waxed, and buy expensive-but-trashy lingerie. Those days were behind me. Okay, so I still favored lacy thongs and matching push-up bras—although as I approached forty (on Wednesday—three days away!), the latter were becoming a necessity rather than a luxury.

  As far as the rest, I shaved every day, and I had a hair routine—pulling my long, dark wavy locks into a ponytail. Took all of three seconds. So I was not about to make myself over for a man. I’d already travelled the road from artifice to authenticity that Gitta was now embarking on. Which made me, I guess, kind of a mentor to her.

  But still, the thought of seeing Lior again following our interrupted intimate encounter and his abrupt departure gave me pause. In truth, the past two months had allowed me to put off thinking about our relationship. Now it was in my face.

  An osprey glided overhead, settling into a large nest atop a gumbo limbo tree.

  “You arrive tomorrow?” I said. “Cool. Need a ride from the airport?”

  “Sure. Straddling behind you with your hair in my face will be just what I need after a twelve-hour flight.”

  For a moment I didn’t know whether he was being sincere or sarcastic. But Lior wasn’t the sarcastic type. That would be me.

  He gave me the flight details. Then his voice got softer. “See you soon.” And he was gone.

  Gazing at my navigational monitor, I saw that the boat had drifted off course while I’d been preoccupied. I replaced my hearing protection, restarted the engine, and turned back toward the dock that was my destin
ation. It was located on the far western edge of Boca, where the land ended and the no-man’s-land began.

  The transition from wilderness to civilization was abrupt. One moment I was surrounded by nothing but sawgrass and swamp, the next moment I broke through to the wooden pier and asphalt road beyond. I pulled beside the dock, tied up the vessel, and offloaded the Hog.

  I donned my helmet and leathers. I might be a thrill-seeker, but I’m not foolhardy. Riding without protection was a death wish. If that’s what I’d wanted, I would have just stayed with Bruce.

  The 883-cc Sportster was just the right size for my five-foot-six frame. My boots rested solidly on the earth, and my gloved hands gripped the handlebars at just below shoulder height. It was all ergonomically correct. I pulled in the clutch with my left hand, pushed the starter button with my right, and the tiger awoke.

  I shifted into first by pushing down the lever with my left toe, slowly let out the clutch, and twisted the throttle with my right hand. Let me tell you, riding a Hog means being intimately involved with the machine—no autopilot on these babies.

  I took off down the straight two-lane bordered on both sides with canals and the occasional palm tree. There was no traffic out here, so I was able to cruise at a good clip. In motorcycle moments like this, it can feel like you’re standing still while the world whizzes past you. It’s an Einsteinian relativity thing.

  However, that sensation stops when you hit the outskirts of town, and cars—or cages, as we bikers call them—crop up. Then you’ve got to be hyper vigilant for all the clueless kooks out there who could kill you.

  So I slowed down as the Mediterranean-style McMansions of the Boca ’burbs came into view. I crossed Highway 441, where my office was located, and buzzed eastward, toward the Atlantic. Now the road was lined with perfectly manicured grass and hedges surrounding swanky subdivisions.

  The Oasis was located in a former luxury condo complex that had been under construction when the housing bubble burst. Financing had evaporated, and the unfinished structure, with its rebar sticking up out of grey concrete block and its dirt lot overrun with rats, had been a blight on Boca for years. About a year ago, an out-of-town corporation bought the property and repurposed it as a drying-out hideaway for the likes of Lindsay Lohan. The client list was, of course, top secret, but occasionally the Inquisitor, our very own hometown tabloid, got the scoop on an infamous inmate . . . er, patient, and splashed the “news” on the front page.